


This Fire Rising

by luninosity



Category: British Actor RPF, X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Comfort, Consent Play, Drugged Sex, Established Relationship, Intoxication, Kink Negotiation, Love, M/M, Naked Cuddling, Sexual Fantasy, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-08 23:56:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which James has very interesting fantasies, and Michael is a very good boyfriend. Lots of negotiation, lots of love, and James labeling porn in Elvish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. day one: michael

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [[授权翻译]This Fire Rising](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4608225) by [Shame_i_translate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shame_i_translate/pseuds/Shame_i_translate)



> **Warnings:** nothing explicit for chapter one, but discussion of upcoming fantasy-fulfillment involving dubious consent. To clarify: prior consent already established, and it’s part of James’s fantasy, but in the specific moment, intoxicated and pliable and being manhandled by Michael, he likely couldn’t say no—but that’s chapter four…
> 
> Title from Flyleaf’s “All Around You,” which had too many perfect lyrics for me to pick one to quote here.
> 
> This is partly the fault of everyone who, when I said, 'hey, so I had this idea, but I'm not sure I want to actually post it because wow that's kinky even for me,' said, 'DO IT.' <3

It happened because Michael borrowed James’s laptop.  
  
More accurately, it happened because Michael borrowed James’s laptop while James was out having lunch with Joe Wright and chatting about the next Great Historical Period Melodrama. Michael’s own laptop had been having inexplicable battery-life problems, and so it was sitting in their bedroom contemplating its own sins; he’d needed to answer an email, and he hated typing long replies on his phone, which he _also_ needed to get replaced because it’d had a close encounter with a motorbike tire, and so, well. James wouldn’t mind. Not as if they didn’t live together and kiss each other and on occasion hand-feed each other bacon sandwiches; a laptop couldn’t be any more intimate than some of the things they’d done to and for each other two nights previously.  
  
Michael flipped it open, winced as usual at the tiny screen—all right, James was also a tiny _person_ , but honestly, how he could read scripts on anything that size was baffling—and then paused, because there was an open folder, one that James probably thought he’d closed instead of minimized, and it was labeled in some incomprehensible non-English language, and Michael, a bit worried that James might’ve accidentally acquired a virus, poked at it.  
  
And then he sat there staring for a while.  
  
Huh. Okay.   
  
He _had_ been gone for three months, filming in New Orleans until two weeks ago precisely. It wasn’t exactly a _surprise_ that James had porn. Michael had porn, too, labeled ‘downloaded Star Wars screenplays, episodes I-III,’ just in case. He wouldn’t’ve put it past Steve McQueen to borrow his computer and go looking.  
  
No, the surprise was a little bit because evidently James had been _looking_ at the porn, and a lot because James apparently had some very interesting fantasy scenarios, ones he’d never chosen to share with Michael.  
  
James had porn in both video and short-story form, because James loved words and reading. Michael opened one of the stories. Read a few paragraphs. Paused, thoughtfully, and contemplated the screen.  
  
He’d never thought of their sex life as precisely vanilla. They had toys. They used the toys. This, however, would not have occurred to him. It was definitely occurring now.  
  
He went back to reading, while outside the wind rattled the walls, blustery obfuscation obscuring his deeds indoors. Paused again, picturing James in that particular situation, and himself assisting with it.  
  
He could see that, he thought. He could _do_ that.  
  
He could very much do that. His body agreed. Pointedly.  
  
This of course was the moment James walked through the door, idly humming what was most likely meant to be some version of the _Star Trek_ theme under his breath, shedding keys and motorcycle helmet and leather jacket on the side table; James came over to where Michael’s brain had momentarily shorted out, started to kiss him, and then froze.  
  
“Oh god.”  
  
“Um,” Michael said, eloquently.  
  
“Oh god,” James said again, looking petrified. “I. You. Fuck. I’m so sorry—”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Why—because this—you—I’m going to go fuckin’ hide in the bedroom now. Or possibly move to another continent. Please stop reading that. _Please_.”  
  
“You like this?”  
  
“If I said no, would you believe me?”  
  
“No. James, you never told me about this. And I don’t want you to move to another continent. Please don’t move to another continent. I love you. We can do this.”  
  
James crossed his arms. Michael recognized that expression: wary, friendly on the surface but disinclined to believe the words, defenses up. It was the look James got when someone complimented him, unprompted, or offered unlooked-for kindness. He’d thought, in the past twenty months, they’d tiptoed out of the whirlpool hazards of James giving that look to him.  
  
“You want to do this. With me.”  
  
“Well, I’m absolutely not doing it with anyone else?”  
  
Not quite the smile he was hoping for. Too many old shields.  
  
“Come here,” he tried. “Please.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because I’d like to kiss you?”  
  
James hesitated. Michael knew that look, too. That was James weighing internal retreat against making another person happy; the latter won out, as it always did, because James was the kindest and best and most wonderful person Michael’d ever known.  
  
James sighed, took the step back to him, and held out a hand. Michael took it, got up, and pulled him close, hands sliding up to cradle that head, to tangle in his hair, dark silk enticing fingertips.  
  
“I love you,” he said, letting the words brush against lips from millimeters away, and then kissed the place where they’d landed, gentle but with complete determination, employing every angle and motion and deep delicious exploration that he knew would be enjoyed until he felt some of the tension ebb away, and James’s arms went around his waist for support.  
  
Perfect; and Michael sat down on the sofa again and pulled James into his lap while blue eyes were sufficiently dazed to not protest.  
  
Or at least not much. “I thought I closed that,” James grumbled to his collarbone. But the tone was less panicked, and more rueful.  
  
“I thought you thought you did.”  
  
“You’re not supposed to see that. It’s labeled in Elvish so you _won’t_ see that.”  
  
“Is that what that was?” He ran a hand through James’s hair again, loving the way it curled upwards, licking his skin. “What does it say, in Elvish?”  
  
“Um. Porn.”  
  
“Yes, I—”  
  
“No, I mean that’s the folder name.” James sighed. “You weren’t serious, were you? Also, let me up, I’m heavy.”  
  
“You’re not, and yes I was. I love you. Is that…was that…James, if that’s something you want, if we’re not—not doing, you know, enough for you—”  
  
“It’s completely _fantasy!_ ” James said, and tried to dive off the sofa, presumably for the safety of the bedroom. Michael caught him, though this involved a fair amount of effort, because James did yoga and performed his own stunts and could vault across a car if asked, not theoretically but in actual fact; Michael’d seen this happen on set and had consequently had to hide in James’s trailer until the scene ended and James could push him up against a wall and take care of the sudden raging desire in his all-at-once too-thin slacks.  
  
James didn’t want to hurt him, here and now, and so didn’t fight back terribly hard. Michael kissed his ear, which also helped engender the lack of resistance. “You know you can tell me,” he said, and tried not to be just a little worried, deep down, that there might be something to be worried about, “if there’s anything you want, in bed. I want you to be happy. Please.”  
  
And, oh, that worked; of course it did, though he’d said the words without thinking about anything but truth. But James sat up and looked at him, all instant sapphire dismay. “I am! I am, with you, I entirely am, you’re fucking incredible. In bed or out of it. Honestly. You’re fantastic. I wouldn’t even know how to—there’s nothing I’d fucking ask for, okay?”  
  
That gaze was so intent. Earnest, transparent, anxious and sincere: James being determined to reassure _him_.   
  
James, of course, had been a virgin with men. Michael hadn’t, but only by a count of one, or one and a half if fifteen-year-old fumbling experimental kisses counted. They’d been learning. Together.  
  
“I know,” he said, and believed it: James was happy. He’d been making James happy. Real. “I know. But if there’s ever even anything you sort of want, or might be interested in—and this, well—I did sort of mean it. I mean. I want to.” Heart in the words. Equal sincerity.   
  
James started to speak, stopped, regarded at him in silence for a few seconds. “…you’re serious.”  
  
“Yes, I am.” He nudged the closest tentative knee with his. James licked his lips, and relaxed a hairsbreadth, letting their legs touch.  
  
“So. If you have…fantasies…tell me? I can’t, y’know, say yes if I don’t know about them.”  
  
This got a flush of lovely pink over the freckles, along with dropped eyes, but James looked back up, after. “Same for you, then.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“So…what’re _your_ —”  
  
“ _Oh_ no,” Michael said, and tapped a finger over those mobile lips. “You. Before you distract me. Anyway I don’t really have any.”  
  
“You—”  
  
“They’re all just about watching you.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“And this…” He used the finger to coax that despairing-ocean gaze up once more. “Thinking about making you happy…about making you deliriously happy, in fact, I think that was the phrasing…I can do that.”  
  
“I don’t know,” James said, but tucked legs under himself on the sofa and nestled into Michael’s encircling arm. Settling in. “I never actually…I mean, it’s porn, it’s fantasy, right? Not anything you’d literally want to do.”  
  
“Would you?”  
  
“I…don’t know. I’m…”  
  
“Interested?”  
  
James winced, shut his eyes, admitted, “I get off to that…I mean, it’s not that all the time…but sometimes I want…”  
  
Michael considered this for a moment, walked his hand to the back of James’s neck, and deliberately made the weight heavy there, thumb and finger coiling around vulnerable flesh. James caught his breath, and the expression in the ocean depths told Michael quite a lot of what he needed to know.  
  
“Sometimes,” he said, and was surprised at how dark his own voice sounded, silky and seductive, “you want to feel helpless. You want to be taken, and fucked, and made to come for someone else’s pleasure. You want to let someone buy you drinks in a club—or even slip you drugs, I thought I saw that—until you’re dizzy and breathless and you can’t stand and you can’t say no, and you can’t do anything except take it, feeling it, needing it, whatever they want to do to you, maybe even more than one person, and you’d get off on that, on being used without a choice, as they make you come, over and over…”  
  
James actually made a small sound, shocked and desperate and, Michael thought, utterly involuntary. Those eyes were huge, staring at him.   
  
He found himself torn between bone-deep white-hot arousal, and a certain amount of amazement at himself saying those words, and a tiny hint of amusement at the mingled astonishment and mortification and desire in that sea-spray gaze.  
  
He said, “I can’t do all of that. Some of that…I can’t, James, I won’t, I love you too much for that. If we do this we do it here, just us, and you know what I’m doing to you beforehand, I’m not going to slip anything into your drink without, y’know, you knowing about it. And I can’t share you.”  
  
James was still staring at him.  
  
“And I won’t hurt you. I’ll stop—I’ll want to stop—if I think you aren’t okay. Okay?”  
  
More staring. And a blink. Two. James seemed to be gradually figuring out that the discussion was no longer hypothetical.  
  
“Still with me?”  
  
“I…you…are we honestly…”  
  
“Your fantasies are about…sort of…not being in control,” Michael said, realizing it was true, working it out as he said so. That did make sense; that made, in fact, an incredible amount of sense. This was James, after all: James, who remembered the birthdays of every person they’d ever met, who baked fresh gingerbread for camera crews and personal assistants; who, upon discovering that the friend—in this specific case Benedict Cumberbatch—with whom he was about to go hiking hadn’t eaten breakfast, had promptly detoured them back home, conjured sandwiches into existence, and said nothing about the belated start to the day. James, who put both arms around him every time Michael sat up in the middle of the night shaking, horribly irrationally convinced that this life, all starring film roles on camera and exuberant freckles in his bed and a generous heart given into his keeping, couldn’t last.  
  
James had listened, the last time, the way that James listened every time. And then had said with calm conviction, unflinching and unpatronizing, that he was wrong, and that he should check his phone for the multiple messages from Quentin Tarantino trying to woo him into signing on for that unnamed secret project, and that moreover James himself wasn’t going anywhere, so Michael should get used to being stuck with him, because they were in love and that was that, forever.  
  
He’d put both arms around that solid shape in the moonlight and buried his face in dark wavy shower-clean hair and breathed in the scent of clean skin and apple shampoo and familiar warmth, and felt his heartbeat begin to slow.  
  
He concluded, “…and mine happen to be about watching you lose control. So…yes?”  
  
James blinked one more time, and then took a deep breath, so deep that Michael had to wonder whether he’d been breathing at all, the last few minutes; like a sea-floor diver, he thought, surfacing just before the end of all air.  
  
James said, very carefully, “I do want everything you just said, I want you, I want to do this with you, I wouldn’t want to do this in public and I would never want anyone else, no strangers, not ever, only you. If you want to. Then yes.” And then leaned forward and kissed him, which Michael hadn’t been expecting; and the kiss was full of sudden enthusiasm, bright as an unlooked-for dawn.   
  
“Yes?” he said, not really a question, he just needed to hear it one more time, and James said “yes?” right back and kissed him again. “I love you.”  
  
“Good?”  
  
This made James laugh. Michael’s heart abruptly felt ten times lighter. Expanding, relieved of leaden weights, inside his chest.  
  
They were okay. They were more than okay. They were _fantastic_ , and they were going to live out this particular fantasy.  
  
“Not tonight,” he said. James raised an eyebrow at him; Michael hastily edited that to, “I mean yes sex tonight. But not this. I want to…do this right.”  
  
Both eyebrows, this time; but James was smiling. “I should let you take care of all the plans, then, now that you know my guilty pleasures?”  
  
“Basically, yes.” With a kiss to the tip of that nose, over freckles. “And no guilt. Unless you hide the, um, pleasures from me again. Okay?”  
  
“It was only open because I missed you. This morning. In the shower. When you were being all noble about letting me recover from the night before last. I very much don’t need to recover.”  
  
“Is that so?” He’d left his hand at the nape of James’s neck, resting over freckles. He walked it forward. Let his thumb brush along the line of James’s jaw, tracing bone and soft skin and ginger stubble all the way. Caught that pointed chin, fingers holding James in place, not punishing but purposeful. Heard the inhale. Smiled.   
  
He observed, “Still not a yes, James,” and James laughed again, and flushed very slightly pink, aroused and embarrassed, and didn’t resist.  
  
“Yes, then. If—”  
  
“If?” His other hand had found the curve of a hip beneath today’s concealing sweater and jeans. He tapped fingers over clothing-warm skin, one-two-three. “If what?”  
  
“If you take me into our bedroom right fuckin’ _now_.”  
  
Michael laughed; kissed him, brilliant and bright and decided; pulled him to his feet in one fluid motion, murmured, “Have I told you how much I enjoy your ideas,” and James retorted, “What part of right fuckin’ now did you not get, honestly, I love you, but we might be needing to discuss definitions,” and bolted, laughing, for the bedroom door.  
  
Michael caught him halfway there, tossed him onto the bed, and set about demonstrating that, yes, he did indeed understand definitions, especially if the word in question happened to begin with an _f_ and sound spectacular in a spiced-whiskey accent.   
  
He got James to moan that word a few more times, too. Just to be sure.


	2. day two: james

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James wakes up, panics a little--they really _did_ just have that conversation--and is thoroughly reassured. Plus, naked pancakes.

James woke up, unstuck his mouth from Michael’s naked shoulder, hoped he’d not been drooling in his sleep, tried to roll over and discovered a tall Irish-German octopus firmly attached to his waist, and gave up on moving because said octopus was cozily warm and adorably deeply asleep, snoring just a tiny bit, with long eyelashes resting over peaceful skin.  
  
He lay there and contemplated those eyelashes for a while. Absolutely splendid. Splendid like the tiny upward curve of those lips; like the straight bridge of Michael’s nose; like the way all the lines and furrows on that forehead smoothed out while Michael slept, as if no worries could ever invade his dreams while his arms were holding James.  
  
“I love you,” James told him, and put his head back on the unmoving shoulder, and shut his eyes. His hand was resting on that lean chest, just over the closest curve of honed muscle. He flattened his palm over sleep-heated skin. Let every place on his hand try to memorize the feeling of Michael beside him. Wanted that feeling to be omnipresent, imbued in his bones and heart and nerve endings, painfully sweet.  
  
Michael would wake up, shortly. Would grin at him with all those teeth, in the pale cloud-light of late morning, and kiss him. Would remember yesterday and that promise, because Michael never forgot a promise, and especially not one made to a person he loved.  
  
James, breathing in the scent of Michael’s shoulder, citrus-woods soap and a hint of clean male sweat because Michael never complained when James got cold and turned up the heat and then climbed onto him in the night, felt himself shiver.  
  
He knew he had fantasies. He knew what they were. He knew Michael’d been exactly right about him and the daydreamed relief of a complete loss of control. And he loved Michael for not being disturbed by the idea; appreciated the effort to make it all seem okay, to make it potentially even come to pass.  
  
He wanted it to come to pass. From the second Michael’d said _we can do this_ , he’d wanted to. He’d felt his heart speed up then; felt it twirl again now at the reminder.  
  
But. But the little part of him that _also_ wanted to stay responsible, the part that made sandwiches and did the dishes and filled out tidy crossword puzzles and arranged Michael’s Star Wars collectibles neatly on their shelf…  
  
…that part of him was terrified of having this fantasy come true.  
  
And Michael was doing it for him; Michael was interested, James did believe that, but would’ve never had the desire without the external prompt. Of the two of them, apparently, James himself was the kinky one. Fuck, he thought, remembering: he’d even been the one to buy their first vibrators, to play with toys in bed. Michael’d gone along with the idea, and seemed to enjoy the ongoing experimentation and James’s curiosity, but that was the crack at the heart of the world: it was _James’s_ curiosity.  
  
And it was James, evidently, who wasn’t normal. Who had fantasies, and got lightheaded with desire at the idea that they could come true, and then got scared of wanting them so badly, because he wasn’t sure he could go through with them after all.  
  
I don’t have fantasies, Michael’d said. And if I do they’re all just about watching you.  
  
The last thing he wanted, ever, was for Michael to feel duty-bound to make his ridiculous imagined scenarios into reality. He couldn’t be Michael’s obligation. He’d never meant for that to happen.  
  
He wanted Michael to be happy.  
  
And Michael was going to wake up determined to make everything work out, and James didn’t know how to say: wait, please, I’m scared, don’t do this just for me, don’t do anything for me, don’t be this devoted, I don’t know what I can give you in return, you already have all of me, don’t put yourself in this position just because I’m somehow wrong…  
  
He realized abruptly that he could hear himself breathing. Too ragged. Not enough air.  
  
He couldn’t let Michael see that. He sat up without thinking, eyes shut against the growing heart-fracture. This, since Michael was holding onto him, had the exact opposite effect.  
  
Sleepy Irish-heather eyes cracked open, and there was a yawn, crinkling the nose he’d been appreciating earlier. “James?”  
  
“I’m—I’m just—go back to sleep, I was—” To his horror, his voice wobbled a fraction, despite the best efforts of theatrical training. “It’s fine, okay?”  
  
“What is,” Michael said, yawning again, and then sat up too. “ _James_ —”  
  
“Sorry—”  
  
“No, Christ, come here, you look—let me hold you, come on, what—was it a nightmare? Something—what can I do?” Michael’s arms wrapped around him, offering comfort, protection, affection; James knew he ought to pull away, knew he shouldn’t take anything more from the man he loved, but he wasn’t strong enough for that, so he ended up cradled against that lean torso while Michael stroked his hair.  
  
“I’m here,” Michael promised, and dropped a kiss on the top of his head. “Always. Can you talk about it?”  
  
“I…don’t know. I’m not crying, y’know.”  
  
“No, of course you’re not.” With a gentle back-rub, fingers coaxing tension away. “You hold me when I’m needing to cry, I remember that. And I love you. _Was_ it a nightmare?”  
  
“No. I can’t—this isn’t—can you just—just _stop_ for a second? Please?”  
  
Michael’s hand stilled on his back. No words, no objections; but the inhale was audible, the precise care of maneuvering around a broken bone, a snapped rib, a stab-wound.  
  
“Oh, fuck,” James said, hopelessly. “I love you, I do, I—it’s too much. You.”  
  
“I’m…”  
  
“I’m not explaining this right.” He looked up, found pale broken green-grey eyes with his own. Reached out and took Michael’s closest hand in his: a bandage, maybe, to stem the bleeding. Michael looked at their hands. Swallowed.  
  
“Are…you…are we…James, you’re not…leaving me…”  
  
“ _What?_ No! Every kind of fuckin’ no.” He squeezed that hand in his. Hard. “I’m only…I’m sorry. For everything, okay?”  
  
Michael’s face was absolutely white. “James, are you hurt? Are you—are you sick, or—oh, Christ, is that why you came home early, yesterday—”  
  
“No! Oh, god, no. I’m fine. I _am_.” Michael didn’t look convinced, eyes raking frantically over his body; James shook his head, squeezed fingers one more time, firmly. “No. I completely promise. You can call our doctor if you want. I’m okay, Michael, I swear.”  
  
Michael took a very deep breath, squeezed back, and nodded. “Okay. So…”  
  
“So I’m a fucking idiot, is all. I’m so sorry. I woke up—scared, I think. From yesterday.”  
  
“From yesterday…” Thinking, intent; James could practically see the panicked rifling through memories. “Because we found your porn? Did I…not say it enough, or sort of not right, that I love you, that I like the idea? Do you want me to say it again? I love you. And I love seeing you happy.”  
  
“ _That_ ,” James said, and very nearly started to cry again, mostly out of frustration with himself. He bit his lip, instead. Tasted blood. “You can’t—you can’t love me that much. Don’t do this for me.”  
  
“James, I—what the fuck d’you mean _can’t_?” Angry, now, but holding it in. Still trying hard. “I _can_ love you, of course I can, where the fuck is this coming from—”  
  
“I mean you shouldn’t.” His voice sounded unrecognizable. Strained and twisted. Not like his. “I’m not—I want to be held down and fucked until I scream and I have fantasies about—about being—what you said, not being allowed to say yes or no or anything, I want that, I know it’s fucked-up and I know I’m—I bought our fucking vibrators and you don’t want anything besides just me and then you want to give me this and I want to say yes and I’m fucking terrified and I—can’t breathe—”  
  
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Michael said, and James dimly registered the impact of the blasphemy, coming from that lapsed-altar-boy background, but he was a bit too preoccupied with trying to get air back into his lungs to apologize again.  
  
“Sit up,” Michael was saying now, voice suddenly sharp. “James. Come on. Sit up. No, straighter. We need your lungs to work. Look at me.” Hands on his shoulders, grip tight enough to hurt. “Deep breaths, James. Slower. In. Out. With me. In, and out. Good, that’s good, you’re all right, do it again, okay? With me?”  
  
“Sorry,” James managed weakly, around breaths. His lungs, under orders, had resumed working. “ ’m okay. Thank you.”  
  
“Jesus,” Michael said, and pulled his hands away and scrubbed them over his face, exhaling, hiding his eyes. “You—James. What the _hell_.”  
  
James sat there and breathed and stared at the rumples and folds of the sheets, because he really didn’t have an answer for that. The closest wrinkles ran in three dark blue parallel lines, like hills carved by a particularly scrupulous deity. He followed them, not looking up, to a messy pool of crumpled fabric, right before the shadows gathered near the dip of Michael’s body weight.  
  
“…you said you bought our vibrators,” Michael said slowly, and James jumped. Michael glanced over: apology, perhaps, in those eyes, or comprehension, or some other emotion entirely. “But…you didn’t. I mean, yes, it was your idea, but…I don’t know if you remember…I paid for them. We were looking at them online, and you were laughing, and you said we should just get them and experiment, and I was already ordering those history books, and I just…”  
  
“…you did,” James said, and fell back into the pillows, and put an arm over his face. “I made you do that too.”  
  
“No.” Michael slid downward on the bed. Stretched out beside him. Touched tentative fingers to his arm, and nudged it up. “Tell me if you can’t breathe like this. And no, you’re wrong, I wanted to, James, what makes you so sure I didn’t?”  
  
“I don’t know.” He let Michael lift his arm away. Saw the hurt, and the hope, in green-grey eyes. He flinched at the latter, but met Michael’s gaze again after. “I’m sorry. I’m all right, I can breathe, I think…I’m just fuckin’ scared. I don’t have an answer.”  
  
“You said that before. Earlier.” Michael’s hand hadn’t left his arm; fingers were tracing small shapes over his skin, random circles and sketched-out music-notes and flowing lines between freckles. “Scared of this? Us?”  
  
“Of…losing us. If I want something you don’t—if you’re going to hate me for this, for making you do this to me—and it is, it’d be you doing all those things to me, and I know you don’t want to—”  
  
“Will you stop answering for me,” Michael said, exasperated, and then brought James’s hand to his lips and kissed each finger, lightly, in turn. “I do want to. It’s not something that would’ve occurred to me, no. But once I saw you’d thought about it, once you told me you’d try, with me…I think I was dreaming about you, this morning. And last night. I want to. For you, and because now it’s my fantasy, too, and it won’t leave me alone. Does that sort of help?”  
  
“Ah…maybe.” It did, somewhat. Not entirely; but Michael wasn’t lying to make him feel better. That expressive gaze was completely truthful, and the whisper of anxious breath over his fingers was honest. “You don’t mind? That I think about—that I want—”  
  
“That you have extremely impressive fantasies, and you’ll let me share them with you? No.” Michael turned his hand over, placed a kiss in the center of his palm this time. “I don’t mind.”  
  
“I’m not sure impressive is—”  
  
“I love your fantasies. The way you can see the world—James, I’ve always loved that about you, that imagination. I’m not—”  
  
“You’re an _actor_.”  
  
“—I know, I know, and yes, but no, it’s not the same. I look at, um, a map of Middle-Earth and think about the logistics of filming it all and the hours on location and how clear the narrative is for an audience to follow. You ask what it would be like to have magic. To be a wizard.” A small nip at his index finger, underscoring. “I admire that. And you.”  
  
James lay there in bed, for the second time that morning, and found himself unable to move. This time it was out of sheer surprise.  
  
“…Middle-Earth?”  
  
“You do like Tolkien…”  
  
“I do, yes…if I told you I was scared of this, of trying—you just said you did want to, and what if I said no?”  
  
“Are you?”  
  
“No. I mean, not saying no. I want to. I trust you. But…it’s just, um, I like crossword puzzles. For fun.”  
  
Michael thought about this for a second, and then said, “Oh.”  
  
“You see why, then.”  
  
“Yes… But that is why, isn’t it? Because you want to not be the one solving the clues, putting the world in tiny boxes, just for a while. To have someone else making decisions for you, about you, about what you get to feel, how much you can take…but if you say no we won’t try it. Any time. If you tell me yes now and then tell me no when we’re standing in the bedroom getting ready, we’ll stop. I love you. I _do_ love you. I can say it in German and French if you want. I could try to learn Welsh. As many languages as it takes. If you tell me that’s what we need.” Michael’s voice was very soft. Fervent. “I can tell you every hour, every day. Just promise you’ll try to hear it, even if it’s not easy, when I do.”  
  
James couldn’t answer for a minute. Too much emotion, again; but in a different way. The tides weren’t pulling him under into darkness this time. They were, inexplicably, holding him up.  
  
He wriggled a foot over. Tapped toes against the bones of Michael’s ankle. Michael blinked, startled.  
  
“I love you,” James told him. “And you don’t need to learn Welsh. I wouldn’t understand you if you did, anyway, you could be saying anything.”  
  
“I’d tell you that you’re beautiful.”  
  
“Say it in English and I’ll listen. You do know me, y’know. Better than anyone. That’s why the yes.”  
  
“Because you feel safe?” Michael stretched a long arm over him. Pulled him close, hips meeting, legs tangling, lips pressing a kiss to one eyebrow when James raised it. “Because I promised to stop if you asked? Also, you said you’d listen. So: beautiful.”  
  
“I will.” He returned the kiss from his own being-cuddled position, ending in a fleeting taste-test, tongue swiping over that collarbone, prompting an answering hint of proprietary growl. “I can. And not just that, about you stopping if I say so. More the first one. With you. You taste warm.”  
  
“Warm?” Michael kissed the corner of his eye; James shut it involuntarily, and then peered at him through the other one. Michael laughed. “You…well, you taste like salt, sort of…but you’re smiling. I like seeing you smile.”  
  
“You make me want to,” James whispered, and Michael pulled him in close and held him, only held him, while the morning drifted toward afternoon.  
  
After a while he did say, very quietly, “Michael?”  
  
“Hmm?” Michael’s nose bumped his eyebrow, moving, nuzzling, reassuring. “Coffee? Food?”  
  
“…yes, actually. Getting hungry. But also yes. To, y’know, everything.”  
  
“Yes,” Michael said, and nudged him again, emphasis. “Together. I bought you chocolate peppermint coffee creamer. Can I make you chocolate peppermint coffee?”  
  
“If I can make strawberry pancakes for you,” James agreed, and saw the smile in lakewater eyes.  
  
Michael wrapped a quilt around him as he started to stand, evidently not quite over the need to protect and defend just yet; James promptly discarded the yoga pants he’d just picked up and said, “Naked pancakes?” and Michael lifted eyebrows. Said, after a second, “ _Definitely_ the kinky one,” and James threw a pillow at him, ran for the kitchen, and started turning ingredients into belated breakfast.  
  
Michael peeked over his shoulder at the process. Then came back to look again.  
  
“What,” James said, deliberately innocent, “you did say you liked my imagination,” and flipped over three happily penis-shaped pancakes, slid them off onto a plate, and then, only half on purpose, caught a foot in the folds of his quilt and let it plop into a puddle on the floor.  
  
“Oh god,” Michael said, staring, “did I say I didn’t have fantasies? Because I do, James, I seriously do,” and then pounced.  
  
The quilt turned out to be an excellent cushion. Michael’s on-the-spot fantasies turned out to involve strawberries and whipped cream and multiple parts of James’s anatomy. Afterwards, James lifted his head just enough to pant, “I like you having fantasies,” and Michael managed almost simultaneously, “Naked pancakes _always,_ ” and draped a weakly uncoordinated arm over his back, and they both started laughing, worn-out and sugar-coated and sticky, sprawled across the kitchen floor.


	3. day three: michael

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Michael makes some arrangements, and decides they need a practice round of making James very happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go. Either tomorrow or Monday, I think...and I think it'll be fun.

Two days after the thorough despoiling and consumption of all the strawberries in the flat, Michael woke up first—more the usual routine; he’d been startled to find James already awake that other morning, and of course in retrospect that should’ve been a sign of the world off-balance—and kissed dreaming parted lips and teased the lines of that sturdy freckled body, playing with a visible nipple until it drew taut, shoving his thigh between carelessly spread legs until James sighed and rocked his hips into lean muscle, cock already awake and pushing back.  
  
Michael put a hand on his hip, held him down, pinned there on top; James blinked, yawned, and woke up properly, but only lay there sleepily looking at him, all glorious lazy freckles and half-lidded dark blue eyes.  
  
“Morning,” Michael said, and pushed the leg up against him again, feeling the resultant shiver. “Want me to make it a very good morning?”  
  
He got the nod, and so he did. Hands on James’s waist, cupping the curves of his backside, holding him in place, positioning him the way Michael wanted him to be. Little nips and kisses and licks along his Adam’s apple, the corner of his mouth, where all those tiny gasps and cries escaped only to be caught and devoured. James shivered, head to toe, and tried to beg for more, hips arching frantically into his leg; Michael said “Not yet” and held him more firmly, denying anything faster, reminding pleading blue eyes which one of them was in control.  
  
He _was_ learning. This hadn’t been one of James’s explicit fantasies, at least not in the brief glimpse he’d gotten, but James had admitted as much, words tumbling out in the wake of that previous panic, and Michael’d heard them. I want to be held down, James had said, and fucked until I scream.  
  
“Please,” James whispered, trembling under his hands, but not trying to get away. The word fell out and mingled sweetly with the counterpoint of the morning rain. “Please.”  
  
Michael, lying there with James securely trapped atop him and commanded by arms and voice and the leg Michael had wedged between his, pushed that thigh up, feeling the drag of James’s heated erection across his skin; James was already wet with need, dripping cock mirroring the brightness in those eyes.  
  
“Please,” James was repeating, over and over, begging now; and Michael found both his wrists, pulled his arms behind his back, trapped them with one hand. Whispered, an order, “Get yourself off for me, James, like this,” and watched those eyes widen and grow dark: James processing what was wanted, realizing he’d need to come rutting against Michael’s leg with both hands restrained.  
  
He waited. James closed his eyes. Breathed out. Then opened them, and nodded, and began moving, rocking back and forth, given permission, panting and flushed, skin hot and growing damp with exertion.  
  
“Good,” Michael breathed, unsure if he could hear, “good, come on, James, come for me, now,” and squeezed those wrists with punishing force, and James tensed everywhere and then collapsed atop him, wet spurts of orgasm pulsing between them, spilling over his thigh.  
  
While James was still shuddering with the aftermath, Michael flipped them over, himself on top; James sprawled across the mattress, eyes open but dazed, and Michael grabbed one of those freckled hands, wrapped it around his own ready cock—heard the inhale, startled by the roughness but utterly acquiescent in his grip—and kept his own hand on top, stroking rapidly, making James stroke him too, once, twice, again, and then the white heat of it hit like a sunburst, pleasure all that he could feel.  
  
He came back to earth breathless as if he’d run a marathon; he was lying squarely atop James, who was also breathing hard, eyes shut, but one hand slid up Michael’s back and flattened itself over a shoulderblade.  
  
“Love,” he got out, shaky with euphoria and fear; James sighed, opened beautiful weary joyous blue eyes, and said, “Well, that was magnificent,” and held him close.  
  
The rain sang away, rhythms of water and windowpane glass and contented rooftop gutters. And the morning was, yes, magnificent, all around.  
  
Eventually he got James up, not without some protest. “You’ll complain if you wake up sticky,” Michael pointed out, a truth he knew from experience, and coaxed him into the shower with promises of hair-washing and a leg massage, after. James liked having Michael’s hands in his hair, liked fingers rubbing his scalp, getting the autumn-rich scent of spiced apples everywhere in the shower. And James might need the massage. That knee would ache—it always did, even if faintly—in the storm.  
  
He put James, all shower-pink and relaxed and amenable to being cherished, back in bed for that. The sheets had survived miraculously unscathed, or at least not worse than usual. James sat propped up by pillows like a decadent young Roman emperor, and permitted Michael to gather long legs into his lap and knead tired muscles.  
  
James had told him about that one fairly early on, though not entirely by choice. They’d been meant to go to a mutual friend’s Shakespearean opening night; it’d been raining then too, and James had locked the flat’s front door behind them, turned, taken the first step down slippery brick stairs, and had his leg crumple beneath him.  
  
Michael, watching his own fingers work methodically over a muscular sturdy calf, upward towards the treacherous joint, gave himself one second of remembered horror: the sickening lurch he’d felt in his stomach as James hit the ground, his own outflung hand not in time to stop the fall. His arms frantic, carrying James inside. Petrified phone calls to their doctor, a Vicodin bottle discovered in the medicine cabinet. And James, shaken but composed, saying, well, you remember all the stunts I had to do, for _Wanted_ , it’s sort of a souvenir, if you want to call it that; and then being the one to hold Michael’s quaking hands…  
  
He set the memory aside. It didn’t belong here and now, in this oasis of snug sheets and fresh-scrubbed skin and dwindling ecstasy. James was fine ninety-nine percent of the time, and when he wasn’t, Michael would carry him.  
  
“You’re fantastically good at that,” James said, also watching, one hand behind his head. The other had wandered over to loop around Michael’s ankle. “If you ever need a back-up profession…”  
  
“I can give you massages for a living? How does this feel?”  
  
“Fine. It was fine before you started, really. It’s not a bad day. And I kind of like that idea. You as my personal masseuse…full-body treatments, obviously…”  
  
“Oh, obviously,” Michael agreed, and did his feet, too, just because. He was a little proud of the way James moaned and went happily limp in response.  
  
“Stay here,” he said, and tucked bare legs back under the covers. “I need to make a phone call.”  
  
“Ridley Scott again?”  
  
“Ah…no. Um. About…if we’re…if you still want…imagination?”  
  
“Oh…” James put that head on one side to grin at him. “Yes, I still want. Though I sort of thought you were going for that this morning. Phone call to…?”  
  
“This morning was a rehearsal. Very, very good rehearsal. No.”  
  
“You’re not going to tell me?”  
  
“Not yet.”  
  
“It’s my fucking fantasy!”  
  
“Yes,” Michael said, and paused, standing by the side of the bed, looking at that affectionately exasperated Scottish scowl. Beautiful, thoroughly so. And happy, today. Not forcing back tears or frightened, that awful shattered expression in sea-spray sapphires. Not unwittingly sending daggers to thump into his soul.  
  
He’d never seen James that close to breaking before. They’d had fights—all couples did, and James tended to leave books on every available surface and Michael accidentally moved the one that was currently important on a semi-regular basis—and he’d known from the beginning that James came with some bruises, some never-quite-healed tender spots that had to do with feeling abandoned and alone and afraid of wanting anything too much. He’d never minded metaphorically turning himself into a comforting hot-water bottle when necessary, except insofar as he permanently and passionately hated the idea that anyone, anytime, had ever caused those summer-twilight eyes any pain.  
  
He understood that he himself was generally a happy person, uncomplicated and easily pleased with life, with birdsong and eighties music and fast cars, good food and good scripts and nights out with friends. James was generally happy also, but that came more from years spent learning how to be, long before they’d even met, than from anything innate.  
  
James was, he thought, as he always thought, the bravest person he knew.  
  
And if this was what James wanted—needed—as a refuge, then he would make it all come true. If James said yes.  
  
If James said no, they’d stop it all now. No phone call. No regrets.  
  
James plainly read the question in his eyes. Smiled. Said, quietly, “Go make your call. I’ve got a script to read. Unless you want to let me in on what you’re planning…”  
  
“I love you,” Michael said. “I’ll be quick. Promise. And still no.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“Trust me.”  
  
“I do,” James said, giving in, evidently defeated by the trust. “I seriously don’t get to know? Anticipation part of the fun, and all that?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Unfair.”  
  
“Inarguable.”  
  
“Insufferable.”  
  
“Adorable.”  
  
“You?”  
  
“No. You. Stay put. In bed. This won’t take long.”  
  
He heard the yell of, “At least get me coffee!” as the door shut. Grinned, even though it was wasted, James not being on that side to see. Went out to the kitchen; came back, mentally timing himself and feeling smug. He’d gotten everything ready on the flimsy pretext of finding another pillow for a backrest, earlier. “You were saying?”  
  
James made a not-really-annoyed face at him for the solicitousness. Sat up—still naked—and accepted the mug, resting arms on pulled-up knees. Both of them. And the sweet roasted harmony of pecans and chocolate and cream tantalized the morning air. “I love you.”  
  
“I know,” Michael agreed, and kissed him squarely on the lips, secure and content. “Read your script.”  
  
James sighed.  
  
Michael laughed.  
  
And then threw on yesterday’s jeans, went out into the living room—having pointedly shut the door a second time—and stood there for a minute, himself and the coffee table and the companionable sofa all listening to the giddy cadence of the rain, elated and afraid.  
  
James was so _perfect_. Blue eyes and laughter and kisses in the morning. Every morning.  
  
And he was out here planning to get James drunk and drugged and then take him to bed and fuck him, ruthless and raw and primal, while James lay intoxicated beneath him and wouldn’t understand if asked yes or no.  
  
He nearly turned around and walked back into the bedroom. He could curl up around all the freckles in bed, help run lines from that script, run fingertips over all the welcoming adventuresome pale skin. Steal sips from dessert-flavored coffee, not because he particularly needed the sugar with his caffeine, but because it’d make James scowl and swat him away and then feel guilty and offer to share.  
  
He could go back. James wouldn’t think any less of him. Would only kiss him, and smile.  
  
And he’d be breaking a promise. I want to do this, he’d said. I can make this happen. For you.  
  
For James. Who deserved to have all his fantasies come true.   
  
Who wanted a night of simply _being_ , for once. Not thinking, not worrying about anyone else’s well-being, not looking up to ensure that Michael was gasping and cross-eyed with ecstasy from that talented mouth on his body. Only instinct, reaction, uninhibited and not responsible.  
  
Michael looked at the mobile phone in his hand, and thought about James naked and pliable and delirious with need in their bed. About James, having admitted to wanting as much, now trusting him with that desire.  
  
And desire, he had to admit, wasn’t going to be terribly difficult to summon on his part. Even the imagining was making his cock, in defiance of all recent exhaustion, twitch inside his jeans.  
  
James had agreed to his ground rules. Only them, James and himself, private and shared with no one. Only here at home. Nothing to which James hadn’t given prior consent. And he’d stop, and James knew as much, if anything seemed to be going wrong.  
  
James had listened to all those conditions, and said yes. Had said yes again just now. Clearly so.  
  
Yes, he thought; and the excitement scampered along his spine once more, returning, building.  
  
He lifted the phone. Hit the number he’d decided would be the best balance of helpful and trustworthy. They’d likely store the request away for future private blackmail, of course. But they’d never tell anyone.  
  
“Michael? Hang on, darling, it’s Michael, would you like to join us—Michael, let me put you on speaker, my other half is concocting mimosas—I don’t believe that’s enough champagne—”  
  
“It’s probably not,” Michael agreed, and got a delighted laugh. “Do you have a minute?”  
  
“For you, of course, dear boy.” There was a rustle; probably Sir Ian sitting down, sipping a mimosa, lifting eyebrows. “Something we can help you with? We may require a trade involving your bartending expertise, mind you.”  
  
“Add pineapple juice,” Michael said, and heard Sir Patrick say, “Hmm….” in the background. “I had a…question…or sort of…I was wondering how to…if James wanted to sort of…and if I wanted to do that, for him…”  
  
“We love you dearly,” Patrick said, coming closer to the speaker, “but I believe you’ve forgotten part of your lines.”  
  
Michael borrowed James’s sigh from earlier. Loudly.  
  
Ian said, sounding suddenly apprehensive, “Are you all right? Is James? Michael, if you need us to come over, if there’s anything wrong, or—”  
  
“No! No, fuck, no, we’re fine. We just—”  
  
“Are you lying to us?”  
  
“No!”  
  
“It is treason to lie to a knight of the realm, you know. And there’re two of us, so it counts twice.”  
  
“It is _not_ ,” Michael said, not that he had any idea one way or the other. “And no. I swear. We’re good. James is good. James is wonderful. He’s—amazing. I made him coffee this morning.”  
  
Patrick made a noise suspiciously like a happy coo. Ian concurred, “Of course you did,” in a tone that simultaneously achieved certainty, rather patronizing pride, and approval. “So, then, what was your question?”  
  
“Um,” Michael said, and flailed for a second, and then finally just gave up and explained, not in too much detail.  
  
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line, and then Ian said, “Ah.”  
  
“So…” He was on his feet, pacing the living room. Needed the motion, the action. Couldn’t stand still.  
  
“Good thing you called us, really.”  
  
“Yes, you could’ve called even earlier. Love, do we still have any of those—you know, from last New Year’s—”  
  
“I’ll check,” Patrick said, and wandered off.  
  
“Well,” Ian said, “we’ll see what we’ve got. I think we can handle this one. Patrick and I don’t generally go in for that sort of thing anymore—though we could tell you stories—”  
  
“ _Please_ not again.”  
  
“—oh, come on, you know James will be curious. Remind me later. Now, we do have friends who continue to insist on bringing things, bless them, and I think we can manage this for you. And may I say that I think you’re a marvelous husband for making this happen, and so carefully, too.”  
  
“Thank y—we’re not married!”  
  
“Not yet. You will be getting on with it soon, I hope. We’d like to be there for the party.”  
  
“What party,” Patrick said, having evidently come back in. “These? The pink ones?”  
  
“You two are terrifying,” Michael said. “Just in case you’re unaware. And yes, you’ll be there, why wouldn’t you, I think James is hoping you’ll officiate. _Not_ that we’ve set a date. Or proposed. There’s been no proposing.”  
  
“Not _yet_.” From Patrick this time; Michael gave up and admitted, “Don’t tell him, but I was sort of thinking about the day after his birthday, because he won’t be expecting it,” and then held the phone away from his ear until the shrieks of glee died down.  
  
“Congratulations in advance,” Ian said, “and yes, those ones, thank you, my love. Michael, lunch next week? Monday?  We’ll give you these. And start planning your color scheme. How do you feel about shades of gold? If you want a winter wedding, with James all bundled up and giant fireplaces and candles, then you could have pale gold—”  
  
“Monday yes,” Michael interjected, though not hastily enough to head off Patrick musing about doves in interested tones. “I’ll text you. I’ll tell him…something. I’m hanging up now. We love you, thank you, and, um, maybe gold, but definitely blue, to match his eyes,” and ended the call on the sound of excited speculation regarding flowers and table decor.  
  
They’d not thought the request was strange. Hadn’t been thrown or discomfited by it at all. Oddly, that helped. A lot, in fact.  
  
He wanted to tell James as much, too. He thought he would, after Monday, just in case anything went awry before then. James would ask about his source in any case, and he’d been planning not to admit it, but now he did want to.  
  
The rain splashed merrily along the wide windows, and made streamers over glass. Threw light and sound like confetti: celebratory, twinkling, exuberant.  
  
James might—once the embarrassment died down—feel comforted by knowing this _particular_ source. Patrick and Ian would never hurt him. And while they’d gleefully encourage debauchery of multitudinous types, they _would_ say something if they were worried.   
  
They hadn’t. And he thought James might need to hear that, in the wake of that two-days-previous fear. The fear had mostly ebbed, he hoped, but the affirmation wouldn’t hurt.   
  
He shoved his mobile into his pocket, glanced over at the bedroom door, and smiled.  
  
When he bounded through the doorway and landed on the bed, already kicking off his jeans—and rescuing his mobile at the last minute, setting it circumspectly to one side in case Ian texted with any change of plans—James looked up from script-pages in the pillow-nest, and held out an arm for him to settle under, and smiled back.


	4. day four: james

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which all those fantasies get fulfilled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ready?   
> ...no, but: I feel like I should have warning labels on this one: here be PORN, guys. Serious porn. The most Serious Porn I think I've ever written.
> 
> Also they might do a thing involving Michael's hands and certain parts of James and the one inside the other. Michael wants to see if they can, with James this malleable and accepting. They can. (Not in the Tags because spoilers...but I can tag it if people want?)

“So,” James said, and eyed the tiny pale-pink pill. It sat in the palm of his hand and eyed him right back, far too innocuously. “It looks very much harmless.”  
  
“Ian said it’d work.” Michael was hovering—no other word for it—at his side. Those Celtic-springtime eyes were an endearing combination of eager and anxious. “If you don’t want to, if you don’t feel—”  
  
“Come on, it was my fantasy, wasn’t it, I want to…” All true, despite the nibbling edge of nervousness. He did. He meant the words.  
  
They were—or at least he was; Michael was still quivering like a worried greyhound on the very edge of the sofa—comfortably settled in the flat’s living room, surrounded by rain and city lights outside, serene lamplight and pillowy furniture inside. Scattered X-Men yet-another-sequel preliminary script notes sat on the table, from the conversation with Bryan Singer earlier; they were down to contract negotiations, time and salary and all the things agents worried about behind the scenes, so Bryan’d mostly called just to pitch ideas at them and chat about character development. James was holding out for a Professor X/Magneto reconciliation kiss on screen. Bryan had, rather surprisingly, not ruled this entirely out of the question.  
  
The laptop was playing, very softly, the Beatles cover of “Twist And Shout” at them; it was James’s laptop, in fact, the one that’d begun the whole discussion. It looked electronically self-satisfied. It’d gotten Michael to sing along while making drinks.  
  
He played with the pill again. Poked it and made it roll across his palm. “Did they tell you what it was?”  
  
“Yes, in fact.” Michael folded long legs up next to him, and then unfolded one and set it on the floor, and then crossed it over the other one. “I wanted to know. I mean, in case…just in case. I wrote it down. I had to call back and ask, because they gave me an unlabeled bottle, because Patrick and Ian like seeing me panic.”  
  
“Sorry.” The bottle in question was sitting on the table. Six more tiny rattling tablets inside. Michael glared at it, and then picked up James’s other hand and started playing with his fingers. “Don’t apologize. That’s them, not you. Are you _sure_ —”  
  
“You waited until after you’d made me two drinks to ask?” Michael had. Had made him a languorous and smoky Manhattan, all slow-burning golden whisky and vermouth and cherry sweetness on his tongue; had made a second one, grinning with all those teeth, after James had consumed the first in long repeated sensuous sips, eyes shut.  
  
He might already be a wee bit tipsy. The room wasn’t wobbling or anything, but they’d last had food two hours ago, and he was having to think about words for an extra second before letting them come out, in case they emerged not quite right.   
  
“You are,” Michael said, and kissed his fingers. “Just a little. You look at me more intently when I talk. Should I feed you first?”  
  
Apparently he’d said that aloud. Hmm. “No. I like the way this feels. And thank you.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“For the drinks, the evening…” He started to wave a hand, explanatory gesture of inclusivity, but Michael was still holding it. “You did plan this. You even turned off my mobile, and yours, after Bryan hung up. I saw you. And you’re here taking care of me.”  
  
“Yes, I am. You didn’t answer. Are you sure?” While you’re still relatively sober, said that tone.   
  
James rolled his eyes, tossed the pill into the air one-handed, caught it on his tongue—Michael looked suitably impressed by this display of coordination, though no less apprehensive—and chased it with the end of his second drink, and then considered this action, belatedly.  
  
“Should I have done that?”  
  
“What? Oh. No—I mean, no, you’re fine. Um. Ian said alcohol’d be…actually, he said it’d sort of intensify things. Sorry.”  
  
“As I think you said, for what?”  
  
“Oh…all right…how’re you feeling?”  
  
“Nothing yet, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m pretty sure it takes more than five seconds for drugs to kick in, y’know.”  
  
Michael sighed. Scooted closer, cooperatively, when James looked purposefully at him and patted the spot beside him on the sofa. Then reached over, wrapped a long arm around his shoulders, and applied pressure until James toppled into his lap. Not so cooperative, then. Continuing to be nervous.  
  
“Love you,” he said into Michael’s chest, now at face level, “and this is hideously uncomfortable. Move your knee.”  
  
“Sorry!”  
  
“Here.” He sat up, rearranged limbs, fit himself under Michael’s arm again, and wondered whether the slight vertigo had been the pill, or two fairly stiff drinks, or just sitting upright too quickly. Michael kissed the top of his head, and then leaned down to scrutinize his face.  
  
“Stop that.”  
  
“I love you.”  
  
“I know. I’ll tell you if I’m feeling….anything…”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Okay, maybe a little dizzy. Are you…did you move, just now?”  
  
“No?”  
  
“Hmm.” He tried lifting a hand. Discovered that he could, but with more effort than should’ve been required. He poked Michael’s shoulder experimentally. Still solid.  
  
“James?” Michael’s hand was on his face, lifting his chin, and when had that happened? “Still here?”  
  
“Still here…I think…” He blinked, and the room spun, a festive whirl of colors and light, amber and gold. “…oh.”  
  
“Oh, good? Or…”  
  
“Good, I think…” He tried moving the hand again, reaching up for Michael’s face, wanting to smooth away some of the concerned furrows. His fingertips brushed Michael’s cheek instead. Found the rough texture of scruffiness there, Michael enjoying weeks off between filming, and that made him smile. “You feel nice.”  
  
“I do?”  
  
“Mmm. This…you didn’t shave. I like it when you don’t shave.”  
  
“You do?”  
  
“Not when you grow the terrible seventies sci-fi villain moustache, but like this…I like it when you kiss me like this. I like feeling it on my skin.”  
  
At which Michael leaned down and kissed him, swift and sweet; Michael’s mouth tasted like lemons and limes, because Michael had been drinking fizzy soda and not alcohol, staying entirely sober. Limes were delicious, James decided, and tried to lick the flavor out of every corner of those lips.  
  
“Love,” Michael interrupted, not quite laughing, “not that I’m not having fun, I am, but I want to check on you, look at me…”  
  
Hands steadied him, held him upright; James whimpered a little, because Michael and the deliciousness were too far away. The world shimmered, chalk paintings splashed with wetness, blurry.  
  
“Hmm,” Michael said. “Should I get you water? James?”  
  
“ ’m okay…”  
  
“And you’d be able to tell me if you weren’t, would you? Look at me. Just for a minute.”  
  
It was surprisingly difficult to focus. The world swam, hallucinatory. He was leaning back into the circle of Michael’s arm, that was real, and he let his head fall onto a supportive shoulder. He did feel good, though: a bit disconnected, hazy, but a beckoning kind of haze, glowing and sensual as molten honey, spreading lassitude through his bones.  
  
He blinked, lazily, and found Michael’s eyes; focused, aware that it was the false coherence of intoxication but unworried about it. “I think,” he offered, “it’s working,” and he could hear it in his voice, the faint slurring of words, but he’d meant it as an obvious joke, and Michael smiled.  
  
“I love you. That hit sort of all at once, didn’t it…remind me to shout at Ian, later…can you make it to the bed?”  
  
“Wait,” James said, and then, as Michael’s eyes went all darker green with concern, sharp color edging out the excited grey, “no, not like that, I just…that’s not right…you’re not supposed to…never mind. Bed?”  
  
“I’m not supposed to what?” Michael’s hand stroked his hair, very softly. “Talk to me.”  
  
“Y’know…” He waved a hand. Was impressed that he still could. “Ask.”  
  
Michael looked startled for a second, then got it. “Oh. And you are all right, then. So…you want me to just…go ahead, then? Whatever I want to do, with you…not asking for permission…”  
  
James heard himself inhale. Felt the blood thump in his ears.  
  
“I can do that,” Michael mused, and that lovely Celtic-German lilt gained an edge, a hint of unsuspected leather and sin. “I do want to fuck you, James.”  
  
He actually heard himself breathe in, automatic response. He could feel himself staring, guessed that his eyes were wide, and wondered how he must look, flushed with alcohol and drugs, gaze enormous, dilated and _wanting_ …  
  
Michael’s hand settled on the nape of his neck, the way it had the very first time, the day they’d ever discussed this fantasy, the day Michael’d suggested someday carrying it out.   
  
Michael’d promised to take care of him.  
  
James wanted to be taken care of. As mercilessly and relentlessly as Michael wanted, however Michael wanted to use him, everything Michael wanted to do with and to him. His whole body ached with it: with the need to be taken and possessed and made to stop thinking, lost in the flood. With Michael, because he trusted Michael, and he knew he wouldn’t come to any harm.  
  
“Christ,” Michael said, and tightened the hand around his neck, enough to make his pulse race. Unless that was the drugs. He blinked, and the world quivered, harpstring plucked and ready.  
  
“You would do anything,” Michael said, very softly. “Right now, for me…get on your knees, James.”  
  
He gasped, shivered, wanted. Obeyed, sloppily, sliding to the floor; and felt the shocking thrill as he did, awkward and off-balance as the room tilted, spinning into a new configuration. Himself kneeling in front of their old familiar sofa. Michael seated, lounging, legs spread. One hand in his hair.  
  
Michael didn’t say anything, and the rain pounded away, outside and indoors, in his head, low cadence lulling him into recklessness. He leaned forward. Pressed lips over worn denim. Over the hardness he could feel beneath.   
  
Michael made a sound. The hand in his hair got fiercer. Held him in place, lips open and wet over the bulge in those tight-fitting jeans.  
  
James trembled, fought back for a second—the end of his coherence, shrieking at him that he was about to suck Michael off in their living room with the curtains open and himself drugged and drunk and he’d never remember this in the morning but oh god he wanted to remember this in the morning—  
  
And then he possibly blacked out a little, except it didn’t feel that way, he was still present, just somehow no longer in control, because he was mouthing at the zip of Michael’s jeans, making small needy noises, and his whole body was softening—except for his cock, which was upright and demanding—and he felt free somehow, loose and pliant and absolutely in favor of all that leather and sin.  
  
Michael’s hand curled into his hair, pulling. “So this is all I’d have to do…tell me, James, would you do this for anyone? Anyone who wanted you, in a club, in a bar? If they got you drunk, if they told you—not asked you—if they ordered you to kneel…”  
  
His whole body shuddered. He couldn’t stop it. Yes, yes, and no, never; he wouldn’t, not sober and rational and articulate, no. He only wanted Michael. But the thought, the imagined vision of it, himself being so thoroughly abandoned to desire, down on his knees and forced to please anyone who wanted to take him…  
  
The arousal, the fearful temptation, the yes and the no, oscillated in his head, and left him shaken.  
  
“No,” Michael said, kindly, word dropping cleanly into his thoughts, an answer to cling to. “No. Because I’d be there. Because no one else would ever go home with you, James. You’re mine. Always.”  
  
Yes, he thought. Yes, please, because he’d never been anyone else’s, he’d never belonged to anyone before, he’d never had anyone who’d loved him this way. Michael cared about him, cared for him, cared when he was happy. Was making this whole night happen, for him.  
  
“I love you,” he breathed, over the faded denim at his lips. “Love you.”  
  
Michael’s hand was strong and certain. “I know. I promise. I know.”  
  
He might’ve moaned a little. Nuzzled his face into Michael’s crotch. Couldn’t help it.  
  
“But,” Michael mused, sounding entertained, “you, like this…no one else’s ever seen this…James, you realize what you look like? Like….oh…I could invite anyone in here, couldn’t I? Casting directors, our agents, anyone…would you like that, James? An audience, watching you…while you’re on your knees, lips wrapped around my cock…”  
  
No. Yes. No. Oh god. His entire body went hot. Cold. Shivering. Please, no, please.  
  
Yes. Yes, if Michael asked it of him. Yes. He knew he’d obey. And he knew he’d enjoy it.  
  
“No,” Michael purred, “no one seeing you like this but me,” and jerked his head back, making their eyes meet.  
  
James trembled, and knelt at the foot of the sofa with Michael’s hand in his hair.  
  
The rain burst in splendid orchestras, caused thunder, beat against the windowpane.  
  
“Love,” Michael said, not in-role for just a moment, looking at him.   
  
James nodded, as much as he could with the hand holding him in place.  
  
“Yes,” Michael breathed, understanding, and stood up, and pulled him to his feet, and shoved him ahead.  
  
Ahead to their bed; or he assumed it was, though with closed eyes he couldn’t in fact tell. Without sight the world was secret and decadent, molasses and flame. He felt Michael’s fingertips flicking at the buttons of his shirt; he didn’t want to simply lie there and not contribute, so he tried.  
  
“Stop that.” Michael’s voice was authoritative, and amused. Affection threaded through the melody. “You’re not helping.”  
  
Sorry, James wanted to say, but his words seemed to’ve all at once gone missing.   
  
“Here…” Those long fingers lifted his arms easily, as if he were a plaything, a doll. Stripped away the thin fabric of his shirt. He couldn’t tell where it went.  
  
“You want me to take what I want, correct, love? You want me to…take you.” That voice, wild heather and emerald sunsets; those hands, now tugging at his belt, and he moaned. Yes. Yes to everything. Please.  
  
“So beautiful,” Michael breathed, breaking character for just a moment, the awe utterly genuine; and then, reasserting: “and mine, James, you asked me for this, you want this, you’re so ready for it…”  
  
His jeans vanished. Possibly some time as well, or he was fading in and out, because his underwear’d gone away too, and he was lying naked in the sheets. The satin was smooth and cool against his skin when he moved, shifting position just to feel the glide of it, so intense and intimate.  
  
The air was cold; he felt his nipples crinkle with it. He tried to bring a hand up and touch one; succeeded, and played with the peak a bit, rolling it between clumsy fingers, because it made his body shiver deliciously. Someone breathed in; a large hand fastened over his shoulder, and James let his hand fall into his lap.  
  
His cock was hard, a fact that registered belatedly, as if from a distance: hard and hot and aching, and it felt good when he ran fingers over himself, so he did it again, and again, mindlessly pushing up into his own hand, chasing that pleasure over and over.  
  
“Christ,” Michael was saying, very far away. “James—”  
  
He heard himself moan in reply.  
  
“Still here, then. And…so eager…just look at you, wanting it…this is what you wanted, James, all those fantasies…” Michael’s hand landed on his hip, heavy and solid, fingers biting down. “You’re getting wet…here…”   
  
One finger—the other hand?—but only one, skimming the swollen hot head, trailing over that slit, drawing more drops out in its wake. “You get off on this, don’t you, James? Being used, helpless, knowing you need it…absolutely filthy, you are, all wet and shameless…you want to be fucked, don’t you? You need it. You want to be…the toy you fantasize about being, with me, for me, James?”  
  
He felt the shudder all through his body, an elemental ripple of surrender and want and shame and desire. Felt his cock twitch, stir, rise further; Michael obviously took note. “You do like that, then. Being told what you are…and you know you are, aren’t you?” Despite the words, the hand was gentle, stroking an apology over his hip: I love you, I’m here, we’re okay.  
  
He shut his eyes, drifting in the tides.  
  
Michael’s fingers walked down to the base of his erection. Squeezed once, firmly—James felt the groan as if it were someone else’s, pulled raggedly out of his throat—and then wandered lower, fondling his balls, toying with the tight-drawn weight, cupping, testing. Tugging downward, just a bit; and he nearly sobbed at the flash of pleasure and pain.  
  
“Ah, but you like it,” Michael’s voice murmured, intimate and leisurely, even as the fingers slipped further back, exploring shadowed valleys, private areas of skin. Pushing his thighs further apart; he let himself be manhandled, rearranged, displayed. He couldn’t’ve fought if he’d wanted to. And the thought made him whimper. Made his cock jump, leaking slowly.  
  
“Such a good little toy, for me.” That low voice resonated through his bones. Obsidian and emerald. Promising and dark. “Not a whore—I’m not paying you, and you want it all—but you’d let me do anything to you…” Fingers over his hole, dry and teasing, and he whimpered again even as the muscle clenched, involuntarily. “Not that you could stop me. And you love that. Being overpowered, by someone who can take you without even asking…”  
  
The fingers lifted. Came back, slippery and cool. Lube, potentially, though he couldn’t see. Couldn’t open his eyes.  
  
The pressure was swift and sure, filling him. Too big to be one finger; two, Michael must’ve begun with. At least. They slid in and out of him, obscene wet sounds adding to the deluge of sensation; they crooked upward and found a spot inside him that made him gasp and twist uncontrollably under the weight of Michael’s other hand, holding him down.  
  
And then they didn’t stop. Insistent, ruthless rubbing, tapping tattoos of pure ecstasy over that same place, pulling new explosions of fireworks from his bones. He felt his whole body tighten and swell with it, release imminent and all-encompassing; heard a purposeful laugh and a “Not quite,” and there was the hand on the base of his cock again, gripping his balls, suddenly too hard, pulling down and squeezing, and, oh, it hurt, but he needed more, needed to come, needed to be allowed to—  
  
He collapsed, sobbing, mind empty, in frustration.  
  
There was a pause, or maybe he only thought there was. Time shimmered, golden and burning and liquid, waterfalls of fire all around. The bed. His veins. Running under his skin with every pounding heartbeat.  
  
Lips brushed his cheek, astonishingly tender; he swallowed the next sob, surprised, and it caught in his throat like a jewel and dissolved.  
  
“I love you,” Michael told the corner of his mouth, licking at the crease, drinking tears from his skin, penitence and promise. “I’m not going to hurt you…”  
  
Fingers slipped out of him, plunged back in. More this time. He couldn’t count. Could only open up, malleable as candle-wax, molten all the way to the core, for the invasion.  
  
“…but I am going to give you what you need.” Legs lifted, repositioned, spread wider; hands along his thighs; and the length of Michael’s cock, at last pushing into him. He knew that length, every inch of it; his body comprehended it, recognized the penetration and welcomed it all, speared, conquered, impaled.  
  
Michael drew back, thrust, found rhythm; neither slow nor fast but steady, as if planning to fuck him all night long just this way, while James sobbed and writhed beneath him in bliss.   
  
Fingers at the head of his cock, teasing, maddeningly light; the trickle of need followed, though, and Michael made a sound, pleased. “So easy for me, aren’t you? So ready for it. Gorgeous.”  
  
Yes, he thought, though he couldn’t speak. Yes. Yours. Please. He was Michael’s, he’d be that easy for Michael, legs spread and body open for use everywhere, the way he wanted to be. He’d’ve begged, if he’d had words left. Please.  
  
Michael’s thumb landed on his lips. When he parted them, letting the weight press onto his tongue, he tasted salt and bittersweetness; himself, he realized, Michael making him lick up his own need.  
  
“Oh, James,” Michael breathed, and started moving in him again, faster now, as if unable to hold back. That glorious length pistoned inside him, friction over one electric place in particular, perfectly aimed; James cried out, arching up, and Michael gasped, “Yes, now, _yes_ —” and heat flooded his body from within, even as he jerked and shuddered and came in long drawn-out splashes between their bodies, sticky drops smearing over his own stomach and chest.  
  
“Christ,” Michael managed, panting. “Sorry, too fast, sorry, I meant to—to make that last—longer—you’re so—” and then stopped, evidently out of words. So _what_ , James wondered, but the question wasn’t terribly important just then.  
  
He felt languid all over, nerve endings glimmering with heat; languid but somehow unfulfilled, as if it hadn’t been enough, as if his body needed more. Michael’s cock was softening inside him, but still long and thick, resting over swollen sensitive tissue. He shifted hips, experimentally, and was rewarded by a frisson of sensation, vivid and fleeting.  
  
“Oh, really,” Michael said, and nudged back into him, deeper, pushing, half-hard but enough, and James moaned and came, a second time or maybe unfinished remains of the first, tiny weak spurts from his cock and clenching muscles inside, delirious climax on the sensation of Michael’s cock buried in him, Michael’s orgasm leaking out from his body, dripping down his thighs.  
  
Michael kissed him, deliberately commanding, in the wake of it. Tongue tracing the contours of his mouth, laying claim; fingers on his nipples, pinching, testing. James gasped. Michael laughed.   
  
And then moved, the whole length of that spent arousal at last slipping free of his body, trailing over sore edges, head catching briefly on the fluttering ring of muscle. Michael began to lick at him, tongue lapping over the sticky tip of his cock, his balls, sore from earlier tugging and denial. Sensitive, too sensitive; and he sobbed and clawed at the sheets, or meant to, but couldn’t move his arms. Michael stopped just before the hurt outweighed the pleasure, though. And that tongue moved lovingly lower, cleaning him, exploring, sweeping over the newly stretched rim of his hole…  
  
James shuddered, twitched, stopped fighting the sensations as they blew through his body. Stopped thinking altogether.  
  
Michael must’ve been slightly worried, at that—possibly because he’d ceased moving—and there was a pause, a rush of cool air over tingling skin. A hand cupping his head, turning his face. “James?”  
  
He wanted to open his eyes, but the lids felt awfully heavy. Michael’s voice got more worried. More insistent. “James, look at me. I know you can’t talk, that’s okay, but I need you to be here. Tell me you’re still here.”  
  
He managed to open his eyes, saw Michael’s face ringed with flickering colors, and closed them again.  
  
“James,” Michael said, and tapped fingers over his cheek, not quite hard enough to be a slap but close. “I won’t fuck you if you can’t wake up. I can’t. You have to at least be awake, understand?”  
  
Yes. He understood that Michael was frightened; and so he opened his eyes again. Crooked one uncoordinated finger: come here.  
  
Michael leaned down. Their noses bumped. James breathed, “Love you,” and Michael’s eyes changed: relief, excitement, elation.   
  
“Good,” Michael whispered, “good, thank you, I love you too, so fucking much,” and James wanted to laugh, and he thought maybe Michael did too.  
  
“Good,” Michael said again, “okay,” and put fingers back on his left nipple and pinched, rolling the tight little bud between fingertips. James would have screamed, but couldn’t, and felt the scream echoed throughout his body instead, nerve endings alight and singing.  
  
Michael smiled. And proceeded with all those aforementioned plans.   
  
Fingers inside him again, working that glorious spot; a hand on his cock, a hand on his nipples; too many hands, or maybe they were just that busy, Michael ensuring that he lost track, drowned in euphoria, in the agonizingly splendid wringing-out of a third orgasm, or a fourth, somewhere in the night.   
  
Michael kneeling over him, hand in his hair and forcing his head up, holding him in place and fucking his mouth, keeping his nose and lips buried in coils of ginger hair.   
  
Himself struggling to breathe, giving up and relaxing into the grip, gag reflex utterly subdued by drugs and airlessness and the marvelous feeling of Michael filling his throat, taking him fast and deep and careless of discomfort, the way that he needed to be taken…  
  
Michael tensed, cock stiffening even more, blocking his air; a rush of fluid heat flooded his throat, so deep he thought he might be choking on it, and he was vaguely aware of his own arousal swelling and pulsing at the distant idea, even while he struggled to swallow as the world wavered, while Michael’s hand jerked his head up and back, permitting him to breathe.   
  
The end of Michael’s orgasm landed on his face, his nose, his lips. More spilled from his mouth, what he’d not been able to swallow. The heat trickled down his chin, and he felt the warmth of it and trembled, letting his body react how it would, and how it would apparently meant the ghost of another peak rising heedlessly all through him.  
  
Time blurred and extended, supple and elastic. The satin of sheets. The motion of bodies. Sweat and stickiness and the drumming of the rain, loud enough to echo his pulse. He felt hyperaware of it all, sound and scent and the friction of skin on skin; aware but drowsy, removed, as if it was all happening both immediately to him, and simultaneously very far away.  
  
Fingers pressed inside him, seeking out that sparking pulse-point anew; the world narrowed, quivered, suspended between inhale and exhale, ecstasy and pain. Too much, too much, and he never wanted it to end.  
  
Michael was saying something, but he couldn’t make out words. He moaned, though: whatever Michael wanted to do, yes. Forever yes.  
  
 _Were_ those fingers? If so, that had to be three. Four. And—  
  
—and, oh, _that_ was what Michael wanted, what Michael was planning to do to him—  
  
“James,” Michael whispered, hand on his hip, steadying. “Tell me if this hurts. I’ll stop. All right?”  
  
He found enough coherence to nod, and was glad Michael saw it, because even that took all the effort he could summon.  
  
“I want to see you,” Michael breathed, “want to see if you can, like this, so wet and so open, I think you can take it, James, you’ll take anything I give you right now,” and _pushed_ , unhurried but unstopping, on and on, and he felt his body quiver and collapse and give in, drugged and euphoric and barely conscious as the thickest part of Michael’s hand eased past tight walls and into his body.  
  
Michael was breathing rapidly, he could hear it; at least one of them was. He wasn’t certain he was, at all.  
  
Michael paused, adjusted the angle, inside him. Pushed deeper, whole hand sinking into him at last, and James heard his own gasping inhale, high and thin and broken, desperate for air, for Michael to move, for another orgasm, as every atom of his body seemed to tighten and quake, under siege.   
  
“Shh,” Michael whispered reverentially, and moved the fist inside him, testing the smallest of thrusts.   
  
The waves closed over him, vast rolling depths of bliss. He thought he was coming again, or he’d never stopped, muscles clenching helplessly and releasing, inundated. The heavy blunt weight sank even deeper inside him; he felt his hips lifted just a fraction, rearranged, and he moaned. The next inexorable thrust went deeper, and he thought he might be split open, but his body gave way around the pressure, yielding impossibly wide and so full now that he couldn’t move, but he didn’t need to, as every helpless dazed twitch set off new glittering billows inside his body.  
  
The cascade of sparks went on and on. He felt his fingers, his legs, his cock, as almost disconnected, awash with ecstasy but individual highlights lost in the omnipresent golden sea. He knew he was trembling uncontrollably; thought he might be crying. His face was wet. His mouth felt wet as well, bruised and swollen from kisses, from use, from fingers and a cock down his throat, how many times had that been, saliva and stickiness on his lips, his chin…  
  
A voice, murmuring: Michael’s voice, and he basked in the low susurration of it, though he couldn’t make out any words. He felt unmoored, floating.  
  
The huge thick intrusion shifted, slid back, pulled out of him, leaving hollowness behind. Too fast, and he was too empty, and he whimpered, sobbing freely.  
  
A hand touched his face, and Michael’s voice whispered something indistinct, fingers cupping his cheek. James turned his head clumsily, nuzzled into the hand, feeling loved and cherished and unworried. He did trust Michael.  
  
Michael breathed out—loud enough to be audible—moved away, came back. James couldn’t tell how long it’d been, but the fingers when they touched his lips were dry and tasted faintly like soap; had Michael paused to wash up? He wondered whether he’d lost consciousness for a while; he’d not thought so, but time had become unreliable, blurry, distorted and ringed with gold.  
  
He licked sloppily at the fingers, wanting Michael to know he was all right; Michael laughed, and said something that sounded like, “One more, then…” and oh, a new sensation, harder and cool and slick with lube, moving easily inside him now, where all those muscles were stretched impossibly open and unresisting. It was almost enough, but not quite; not thick enough, when he was so loose and wet and spread apart; he whimpered again, incoherent, unable to explain.  
  
“Shh,” Michael whispered, “I know,” and shoved those fingers deeper into his mouth, no longer freshly clean but messy with his cries and sobs, keeping his voice muffled and lips apart, unable to close, a gag and a command and another penetration. And James felt himself quiver all over, head to toe rush of incandescence, at that.  
  
“Now,” Michael breathed, and the toy came to life inside him; not thick enough, no, but buzzing and vibrating madly against that perfect spot, demanding and electric and right _there_ —  
  
The climax hit out of nowhere, showers of stars becoming supernovae in his veins. But the vibration didn’t let up, ceaselessly pulling him on into the brilliance. He couldn’t think, couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe, heart pounding with overstimulation; he might be coming once again, body convulsing, last spurts of fluid from his throbbing cock; or that might be something else, something even beyond anything he’d imagined, final total irrevocable loss of control, liquid warmth pouring over his skin as all his senses imploded—  
  
The world went inarguably white around him, and he was dimly aware that he was on the verge of passing out, body and mind giving way to implacable orgasm and humiliation and bliss and ultimate surrender, and he fell into infinity with profound joy.  
  
  
After some time, he became aware that he had a body again, and moreover that he was probably waking up.  
  
He felt…safe. And comfortable. Surrounded by fluff, soft and cloudy as cotton-candy blankets, pink and full of air. He also felt wholly exhausted, entire body sore and overextended and tender. But it was a good soreness. The kind of euphoric ache that lingered after a long hike and an intense yoga session, pushed to the limits and triumphant.  
  
He lay still for a while, breathing in and out, remembering, listening to the low-voiced rustle of the rain. Thunder muttered intermittently, but it didn’t mean the crankiness, not when it was comfortable too. He could tell.  
  
He tested wiggling a foot. It responded, though not by much; he panicked for a moment, and then figured out that he’d been bundled so tightly in blankets it was a wonder he could move at all.  
  
He tried a hand next, and a deep breath. Fingers, check. Excellent. Maybe with fingers he could dispose of some of the overbearing blankets.  
  
There was also a weight on his shoulder, which was strange because the rest of him felt rather weightless and exultant. Tentatively, he opened both eyes.  
  
The room looked the same. Their bedroom, all pale walls and colorful bookshelves and one of Michael’s sweaters in a heap on the floor, visible around the side of the bed. He couldn’t tell the time of day, not from the watered-pearl quality of the rain-light, but that wasn’t important just now. The world was timeless. Flawless, in this instant. Home.  
  
He tipped his head to rest against that other head on his shoulder. He’d figured out what the weight was, along the way. It was Michael, who’d plainly fallen asleep sitting beside him and toppled over. Michael’s hair, getting long enough to curl upwards, was tickling his neck; but he liked the feeling.  
  
He did sort of want to move his arm, though; his elbow, of all possible body parts, was threatening to return to sleep. He spared a moment to wonder how that was possible, and then attempted squirming around in the blanket-cocoon.  
  
Michael yawned and murmured sleepily, “James?” and then sat bolt upright, eyes huge. “James!”  
  
“Hi.” He raised eyebrows, since waving was currently impossible, what with Michael’s weight pinning blankets down. “Good morning—is it morning?—I love you.”  
  
“It is—are you all right? I’m so fucking sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I was trying to—I love you. How do you feel?”  
  
“Good. Tired, I think. I’m fine.” His head was a little fuzzy, but it was only a faint layer of wool, not an entire sheep. He’d had worse hangovers by far. “How’re you? Also come here and kiss me. I apparently can’t move.”  
  
“You can’t—”  
  
“Because you’ve mummified me in quilts. What on earth is this top one? Why is it red and purple?”  
  
“Birthday present from Matthew. Just before we moved in together. I found it in a box. Are you cold? Can you sit up? Do you want water?”  
  
“Did you excavate the closet just for me? And…emphatically no, probably yes, and maybe. And you didn’t answer my question.”  
  
Michael took a deep breath, let it out, said, “Water first,” and ran to the kitchen, and ran back. “Here.”  
  
The clean coolness of it did feel good in his mouth, along his throat, when he swallowed. He couldn’t help the tiny wince; the motion brought back physical reminders of all the use. Michael practically vibrated with concern, witnessing that.  
  
“I’m okay,” he said, and handed the water back. “Really. Maybe kind of sore. But I like it.”  
  
“You do?”  
  
“I do. I feel…” He stretched arms over his head, stretched legs out under the vibrant quilt, pointed toes, shrugged shoulders. “Lighter. Equilibrium. More anchored. Ow.”  
  
“Ow?”  
  
“All right, not so much sitting on _that_ spot. Did any of that make sense, though? You can say no.”  
  
“It did,” Michael said, and got under the blankets with him, put arms around him, and rearranged their bodies, sitting back against the headboard, taking most of James’s weight. “It does. I love you.”  
  
“Mmm. Love you. Thank you.”  
  
“No.” Michael leaned down; James tipped his head up and back and a little to the side, and their lips met. “Thank you. For this—for giving me this. You. Us. I like being an anchor for you. I can do that more. Not just last night, I mean. I can do more for you.”  
  
“I like taking care of you,” James said in reply, not exactly a disagreement, and tucked his face into Michael’s neck and closed his eyes, breathing. “Did you clean us up?”  
  
“You don’t remember that?”  
  
“No…was I awake?”  
  
“Um. Not at first. I tried shaking you, I tried—you did wake up. You looked at me and told me you were okay and I shouldn’t be worried and you offered to make me cinnamon rolls. I thought you were—I gave you water and you went back to sleep and that’s why you’re not waking up in an emergency room, because you seemed—you honestly don’t remember?”  
  
“Cinnamon rolls? No. But it does sound like something I’d say.” He set a kiss on Michael’s collarbone, lips over skin and bone, trying to chase away guilt and apprehension with certainty. “You were perfect. You did take care of me. You—did you sort of change the sheets around me?”  
  
“It’s a skill. What _do_ you remember, then?”  
  
“Pretty much everything until that last one. Which, by the way, you should be sort of proud about. You literally made me come so hard I passed out. I didn’t know that was possible.”  
  
“Neither did I.” Michael’s shoulder tensed almost imperceptibly beneath his temple. “I could’ve lived without that one. You have no idea how terrified I was.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“James, you were drugged and you’d been drinking and I knew I’d made you cry already and I told you you wanted it and I made you come, I made you—you might not remember, that last time, but that was more than—you did come when I told you to, but you also sort of—and I didn’t know I’d pushed you that far, you just sort of went limp, even while you were still in the middle of—and at first I couldn’t tell if you were breathing and you wouldn’t wake up—” Michael stopped, very fast. The rain chattered lazily, companionably filling in the gap.  
  
“Oh,” James said, mostly to get a word out there in place of the weather-commentary. “But I did. Wake up, I mean. You said.”  
  
“You did…except you didn’t, did you. You don’t remember that.”  
  
“I might, a bit.” Not a lie; with the prompting, bits and pieces were returning. Michael’s eyes, wide and frightened and thankful when they found his. A cloth, warm and damp, on his face; another, even more cautious, between his legs, cleaning hypersensitive skin. The voice he loved, murmuring apologies when he whimpered from renewed stimulation. That’d been when he’d said something: Michael’d needed comfort.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said, and put an arm around Michael’s waist. “I didn’t know you’d pushed me that far, either. I could’ve said no—yes I fuckin’ could have, don’t look at me like that, I did hear you when you said one more. I wanted it all. Even that thing at the end that I might have to be embarrassed about later when you tell me the details. I’m fine, and you’re here, and we don’t have to do this again, you did it once, for me, and I love you, and we’re good, okay?”  
  
“Love you,” Michael said, face buried in his hair. “So much, James.”  
  
“I know,” James told him, and patted the nearest slim hip, purposefully in between reassuring and patronizing. Michael made a sound that was half a laugh and half an exhale of pent-up fear. “James?”  
  
“Cinnamon rolls? Since apparently I offered?”  
  
“If you want them I’ll make them. You’re not getting up today. But…you said we didn’t have to do this again. But you liked it.”  
  
“I did, but not if it’s going to traumatize you.”  
  
“No…I mean, yes, sort of, but…watching you…getting you to come for me, over and over…and at the end…knowing I could give you that, even that, and the way you looked when you…you want me to be honest about this…”  
  
“That’d be nice, yes.” He had an idea of where that sentence might be going, from the tone, from the hesitations, from the unwilling admission in the face of lingering anxiety. He caught himself beginning to smile: they wanted the same thing.  
  
“…I liked it,” Michael finished, and then tipped his head back against the headboard and shut his eyes, despairing retreat. “Christ. James, I’m so sorry.”  
  
James actually rolled his eyes at that unnecessary melodrama. Sat up gingerly, swung a leg over slender hips and settled into place, got nose to nose with the man he loved, and said, “Why?”  
  
Michael’s eyes went comically wide. “But—you—I hurt you, I—”  
  
“Do I look hurt?” He waited; Michael didn’t seem to pick up on the idea that it wasn’t a rhetorical question, so James just rolled the eyes at him again, leaned forward, and kissed him. Michael, after a dumbfounded second, kissed tentatively back.   
  
“Sore, yes, okay. And maybe next time we don’t give me two drinks on top of it, and we make Ian feel guilty about that one for, oh, the next week or so, and we save the rest for special occasions, there’re only six left, it’s not like this is an everyday thing. Still with me?”  
  
“I…maybe…you would…you’d want to…”  
  
“Do this again? Absolutely I would. And so would you. It was good. And we’re spectacular. Right?”  
  
“…yes,” Michael said, very slowly, but there was jubilation growing behind those eyes, sunrise over wild Irish riverbanks. “Yes.”  
  
“Settled, then.”  
  
“I love you,” Michael said, and, out of nowhere, put a hand in his hair, tipped his head back, held him in place to be kissed, forceful and drawn-out and plundering. James actually felt his knees go weak, which was rather impressive considering that he was sitting in Michael’s lap in bed. The rest of him decided to go all compliant and malleable too, and he was breathless when Michael drew away.  
  
“What,” he got out, “why—you _stopped_ ,” accusation which got Michael to start laughing, anxiety banished and replaced by merriment, and the laughter was echoed joyfully by the rain.  
  
“Just wondering. And now I know it’ll work.”  
  
“Yes, well,” James grumbled, and poked him in the ribs with one admonishing finger. “Don’t be smug about it.”  
  
“Don’t listen when I tell you to put your hands behind your back, then,” Michael retorted cheerfully, and James sat there and glared at him and couldn’t think of a decent response, mostly because he really wanted to follow the order, and he wasn’t going to.   
  
Not immediately, at least.   
  
“So easy, for me,” Michael observed, fond and satisfied, and tapped a long finger over his lips, and James utterly failed to not breathe in and lean forward at the hint of command. “Mine. And I love that. And the way you’re scowling at me. D’you want me to bring you cinnamon rolls in bed?”  
  
“No,” James said, and sighed. “Yes. I love you. You don’t in fact know my recipe, you are aware.”  
  
“I know,” Michael said, and those eyes softened, heated, kindled, finding his. “I’ll be creative. Imagination.”  
  
“Bring me cinnamon rolls _naked_ ,” James said, “in bed, with cream-cheese icing,” and Michael used the cheerfully commanding fingertip to lift his chin for one more kiss, getting up, and said, “Have I mentioned I love your—sorry, _our_ —fantasies.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Light In Your Eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181529) by [luninosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity)




End file.
